The venture industry works on the premise that investors are generalists and entrepreneurs are specialists. VCs are good at being, well, VCs, and the entrepreneurs have to be really good at whatever specific task they set out to do.

This isn’t by choice—ask an entrepreneur what they’re looking for in an investor and they won’t say things like “advice, corporate governance, recruiting.” Entrepreneurs would prefer someone who has specific connections, interest, and knowledge about the market they’re attacking and the technology they’re building.

The problem is that it’s very, very difficult to find VCs by sector and expertise. The new markets feature on AngelList solves that problem. For example, a smartphone baby monitoring company joined AngelList. They wanted to meet investors with who had expertise in Analytics, Babies, Consumer Electronics, Parenting, and Mobile. A music startup joined AngelList and wanted to know which investors still love the music market (and which hate it).

Now you can go find your specialist investor. The one who can really add value. Try the search box or browse.

great post, i agree. the era of the generalist VC is over; the community of entrepreneurs can provide a founder with most of the horizontal skills and knowledge. a VC needs to know his/her shit in a given lane, and not be an asshole.

The problem with stereotypes is that they act as filters of what we are capable of. There are some angles (sorry VCs) that actually like to code/work biz and really know a lot of details. That’s why I think Angels have an edge right now. Life experiences trump raw cash sometimes.